


A Brighter Place

by KittenBlueStudios



Series: Mass Effect 3 One-Shots [1]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Friendship, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-12 02:15:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17458688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KittenBlueStudios/pseuds/KittenBlueStudios
Summary: Shepherd mourns the loss of a dear friend





	A Brighter Place

Some friendships are hard to handle from the start. Not because the person is a difficult person to handle like Jack, but because someone would be missed, and you knew it when you met them.

 

Thane Krios was one of those people.

 

He’d lived a dangerous life, he was an assassin by trade. He was raised that way. Molded into a deadly weapon from a young age by the Hanar. His body was a weapon, his gun a tool. He had used her as a convenient distraction to get his job done, watching her as he made his way through the building with stealth and grace. 

 

He made sure she saved the lives of innocent workers on her way to find him.

 

He prayed when he had killed his mark, not for the dead, but for himself. His soul. He felt himself less than what he should have been.

 

_Not for her. For me._

 

He had held himself with confidence, but not with pride. Never pride.

 

He was not proud of who he had become.

 

_This was to be my last job._

 

For all his assassin training he’d found a light in the darkness. His eyes opened to a new world of possibilities when Irika had stepped into his scope that fateful day. The coldness that had been his universe became warm with her love, and he found happiness in it.

 

But being an assassin comes at a price.

 

_I am dying._

 

She’d been targeted. He’d recounted her death, his memories so vivid and strong they came forth verbally in an elegant manner that described everything in detail. Shepherd almost felt like she’d been there.

 

The rain on his face. His son trying to get to his mother.

 

The pain of his loss.

 

_The universe is a dark place. I'm trying to make it brighter before I die._

 

The pain was only worse because he’d neglected his son for his job. The bond he should have had with Kolyat was broken, and they had had to go after him in an attempt to stop him from trying to follow in his father’s footsteps.

 

He was not raised to be a weapon.

 

He should never find himself in that dark world.

 

Kolyat was painfully wounded by his father’s neglect. Thane was painfully reminded he had made the wrong choices.

 

He loved his son.

 

And he was dying all too soon.

 

_Time for me is short, Siha. But any that I have is yours to take._

 

She’d lost a good friend when he passed, and Kolyat had lost his father. Thane had bid them to pray, and this time it wasn’t for him. It was for her.

 

Her heart wrenched in her chest as she sat in the Normandy’s cabin. Tears fell from her eyes and she looked down at the prayer book his son had given her.

 

Thane Krios was never wicked. He was never not good enough. He was a great man.

 

And he would be missed.

 

 _Kalahira, mistress of inscrutable depths, I ask forgiveness._  
Kalahira, whose waves wear down stone and sand.  
Kalahira, wash the sins from this one and set her on the distant shore of the infinite spirit.  
Kalahira, this one’s heart is pure but beset by wickedness and contention.  
Guide this one to where the traveler never tires, the lover never leaves, the hungry never starve.  
Guide this one, Kalahira, and she will be a companion to you as she was to me. 

 

A choked sob echoed through the empty room and the prayer book was held close to Shepherd’s chest as she mourned her friend. She wasn’t ready for him to die, even knowing his time had been at hand, she hadn’t been _ready._

 

He shouldn’t have died by a blade. He shouldn’t have died because of the damned war. He was already dying.

 

He should have stayed at the stupid hospital.

 

He should have just let it be.

 

But that wasn’t Thane. He was trying to make the universe a brighter place, like always.

 

Gods, she’d miss him. She’d miss him so _much_.

 

"Damn it."


End file.
